What I got up to before 8th Edition hit - Part Two [40k - Dark Eldar]

So as 7th drew to a close I had one last tournament to go to.  It was a small local 1250 point Highlander tournament, and I used it to paint up some more units.

With my trueborn with blasters always being envious of Eldar Fire Dragons I decided to paint some up.  To tie them into my army better I used Dark Eldar heads and used a darker than usual colour scheme (well apart from the guns).  Here's a work in progress pic:

[a pic of the painted Fire Dragons and Starweaver will follow in a later post]

The main reason I finally included Fire Dragons was because at the time they were allowed to go in Ynnari Harlequin Skyweavers.  This was important because I do not like the aesthetics of the Eldar transports, while the Harlequin vehicles are similar to my converted Venoms.  You can see my Skyweaver in the pic above, again I couldn't leave the model standard and mounted the 2 shuriken cannons each side of the cockpit, and adding spikes to the front of the hull to tie it into my army, as my converted Venoms have the same, finally I used a reaver jetbike helmet for the pilot.

Both units did well in the tournament, and when Soulburst works on the Fire Dragon it's deadly.  Unfortunately with the move to 8th edition, and the very sensible ruling that each faction of Eldar can not go in each other's transports both the Fire Dragons and the Skyweaver have not made my initial 8th edition list.  However the Skyweaver may make a come back, although it can't transport any models (I have no other Harlequin models) its a very good gunboat compared to the Venom for nearly the exact same points.  The Skyweaver has a better invulnerable save, and 6 shots at Str6, in my opinion, is better than the Rapid 6 from 2 (4+ to wound) Splinter Cannons on the Venom.

After the tournament I converted up my next unit, which was originally going to be some Warp Spiders.  I saw a great conversion online, from Mantle on Dakka Dakka (link here):

The conversion used Dark Eldar Scourge legs with all the spikes and blades cut off, Eldar Guardian torsos, arms & heads, Wraothblade Hip Plates on the shoulders, Wraithblade Loin Cloths and Guardian Aerials for the Warp Jump Generator, and finally the front of a Shuriken Catapult replaced with the end of a Wraith Cannon.

The only change I made was to use Scourge heads rather than Eldar Guardian heads.  Here's the first two models assembled:

Painting went on hold with the rumours of 8th edition approaching.  As soon as the Index's were released, in an effort to return my army list to mainly (if not totally) Dark Eldar, the leader of the unit got his weapon converted to a Shard Carbine, and the unit will now be Scourges with Blasters.


The tournament I won but didn't

The tournament organiser had made the scoring system to hopefully make it more enjoyable for all players.  He didn't like the idea of a player knowing their going to lose and having nothing to fight for with 1-2 hours left of the game to go.  In this tournament each player's tournament points was the amount of victory points they scored during the game (using points killed as a tie break).

While fine, this can lead to two unintended consequences:

• Fast armies tend to do well regardless of whether they win or lose.  Your score can be more impacted on the cards you draw.  This has impacted me both ways.  In a previous tournament at the local GW store I had a close game where both my opponent and myself (playing Necrons) kept drawing maelstrom cards we couldn't do.  I lost the game, but because we both scored very low victory points it basically put us both out of the running.  
• The results are polarising, in that the tournament the top players all scored high victory points even when they lost, eg. one of my losses was 16-19, and my 16 points would have been one of the highest in the room.  This makes later round's matchmaking a nightmare for the TO.  In the last round people at the top had to be moved, sometimes by 2-3 tables because we had all played each other.

In the final results I came 4th (knowing my victory points I guessed something was probably wrong), and out of the four games I had played the person in 1st, 2nd & 3rd.  What turned out was that my game against the person in 1st place had been entered the wrong way round.  Normally this wouldn't have affected the results much but in this case the game had been a 25-10 win to me.  The TO let me know later when he checked it would have swapped my position with the winners.  With my 25-10 win it meant that even losing my last game to the person who came 2nd it wouldn't have been enough for them to catch-up.

I am concerned that the winner in tournaments which similar scoring systems (tournament points = game victory points) is the one who gets lucky and wins by a landslide in one of their games wins.  Yes I played well in that 25-10 game, but not to justify 25 tournament points, compared to what people on nearby tables would have got.

So I won, but not officially, my last tournament of 7th.  Most importantly I had 4 great games, painted up some new units that I can draw on for years to come.  Plus it got me back to the converting and painting table, in time for 8th edition.


What comes next

It's been busy since 8th edition came out, and over the next few posts I will cover:

• The tournament list I used for this tournament, and how I think 8th edition affects it, and the Dark Eldar list I will be using going forwards
• How my Tau will transition to the new edition, and the new models I have built and painted
• How much I love Bloodbowl (well you already knew that), and the new teams I am converting to use in my mate's annual winter league

It'll be much less time between posts going forwards, but in the meantime let me know how you have been finding 8th edition.

Rathstar

What I got up to before 8th Edition hit - Part One [40k - Dark Eldar]

With a new edition coming up I wanted to move back to my Dark Eldar.  There were a few units I still didn't have, and I missed the army's aggressive playstyle.

Disclaimer: This post has been sitting in my draft box for way too long, so I've added some 8th Edition comments into the mix

Initially I considered Mandrakes.  I remember using a unit of three wracks back in 6th edition to hold objectives for a measily 30 points.  In 7th the minimum unit of wracks went up to 5, they lost the ability to become troops, poison got worse in that you only rerolled to wound if you had higher (rather than the same) strength compared to the opponents toughness, and lastly they competed with the much improved Grotesques, plus Trueborn and Incubi in the Elites slot.

Since then I've moved away from using Incubi and only use at most one unit of Trueborn, so spending 36 points on a small harassment unit in the form of 3 Mandrakes could at least be useable.  In fact I had seen Skari (link to his youtube channel) use them very well on multiple occasions.  Skari's channel also has some great 8th edition battle reports already.

I got as far as ordering the models, but the Gathering Storm Book II game out, which gives a huge boost, even if you don't include any Eldar or Harlequin models to a Dark Eldar force, Mandrakes were not allowed in the Reborn Warhost detachment :(  I also found I was being distracted, so to focus myself I signed myself up for a tournament.

The tournament was an escalation tournament, with games at 400, 800, 1200 & 1600 points, so I decided to use the event to paint up units I didn't have.  First up was a converted Shadowseer I assembled about a year ago and undercoated grey, but then hadn't got any further:

I had initially converted it to use as a Spiritseer (one of many times I have flirted with using Eldar).  I added extra pipes to his back with extra phastasm grenade launchers from the kabalite warrior box, and the weapon was converted from a wrack blade at the bottom, a hellglaive for the middle section and a venom blade for the top.

Although I could spend more time on it, the model turned out good enough for the tournament, and I could return to it later:

Next up were Medusa.  Although I already had some Lhameans and Sslyths I thought Medusa deepstriking on a venom could be very nasty in a Ynnari force, potentially able to take out 2 small units close together with their Str4 Ap3 flamers.  Shame their weapons don't ignore cover in 8th Edition

Now the issue with Medusa is that it is a single pose Finecast model, however I noticed that the kit had 2 heads, and I had a few Warhammer Shadow Warrior legs (old project that never happened), so I converted 2 using kabalite warrior torsos and medusa heads, and put a reaver jetbike head on the finecast medusa body to get 3 different medusa models:

I have to say I really avoid finecast models, particularly as a lot of them are direct only which means you are playing Russian roulette as to whether you get a nice one or one with horrific amounts of flash on them (let alone mis moulded parts).  The medusa I received had lots of flash, but at least I only had the single model:

I think the required clean up was worth it as I now have a nice unit to use:

Last up was a conversion I originally was going to use as Corsair Jetbikes, so I wanted to incorporate elements of all the other eldar factions.  For the moment I would use them as Scatbikes, but with magnetised weapons they could be refitted to be used as reavers jetbikes.  I am sure the Ynnari as it is now will only be playable for a few months until 8th edition comes out.

Well I was wrong, but the latest FAQ meaning I have to use one of the Ynarri special characters to play Ynarri, and the better Dark Eldar power from pain table, will mean that I will just use an army with the Aeldari faction keyword until the Dark Eldar codex comes out which may make a pure Dark Eldar force have more benefits, and it allows me to play with my Jetbikes.

[Magnetised Scatter Lasers - I only see them being used for the next few months until 8th Edition hits]

The jetbike started out as a reaver jetbike then I removed the back vertical blade, and used 2 blades from the reaver weapons to make two more diagonal blades simular to a eldar windrider.  I then added a Skyrunner canopy over the front of the jetbike to which I added spikes from the raider set (to tie the jetbikes into to my army which had similar spikes on my converted venoms).  Lastly I used scourge heads on reaver pilots.

Here's the jetbikes ready for the tournament, again not finished but most of the way there:

and a group shot of all the new models:

Unfortunately due to family issues I wasn't able to make the tournament, but its nice to get new models for my army.

I've managed to catch three games down my local GW.  Two were small games at 800 points, the last one was at 1200 points.  However the 1200 point game started very late so we didn't get to finish, which was a real shame as it was the only game that included the Medusa, and they stayed in reserve all game.  However I could see they had potential looking at where they could have come in and the damage the small unit could have done.

The Shadowseer has been very lacklustre so far.  Not surprising when he's a lvl 1 psyker with no other psychic support, its a bit hard to get spells off.  Another issue he has, is that he is very fragile, and I move him into my Court's raider on turn 1, so he normally in the thick of combat soon, and being the only character in the unit he is normally challenged out, and he has struggled, dying most times, against squad leaders.

Oddly enough with Furious Charge and +2 Str on his weapon he's surprising effective against non-walker vehicles, and managed to kill an unharmed Rhino on the charge by himself.  This is really useful in a Ynarri force because the Shadowseer has a high Initiative, which meant that the Court he was accompanying was allowed to charge the occupants immediately.  However while the Court killed the occupants of the rhino over 2 or 3 combat rounds the Shadowseer died to the squad champion.

Obviously this has changed in 8th edition, with vehicles and monsters needs more dedicated weapons to take them out, rather than just glancing them to death with mid strength weaponry.

In 8th edition Beastpacks can not benefit from Strength from Death.  Ynnari works better with shooty Infantry units and Jetbikes, rather than my typical Dark Eldar list which focuses on Vehicles and beastpacks, even my Court of the Archon has been changed significantly, both becoming more expensive and individual models.  An Eldar army made of up of Reapers and Windriders would do well with Ynarri.

That's all for now, next up I'll show some more models I've painted up for a tournament I did make, before getting onto my 8th edition adventures.

Rathstar

The Dark Eldar Beaststar - we can rebuild you [40k DE]

What was the Beaststar ?

[a Beaststar gets ready to support an Eldar army, link to battle report]

A bit of history, the Beaststar came from the previous Dark Eldar codex.  In that codex you could have up to 5 beastmasters in a unit, and each beastmaster could bring 0-1 Clawed Fiend or 0-2 Razorwing Flocks or 0-5 Krymerae.  What you could do was take 5 beastmasters and 25 Krymerae to make a big fast assault unit.  Then add in the Baron, a cheap (105 points) special character who gave the unit a higher leadership (ld9), Hit and Run & Stealth.  Back then the Krymerae were only toughness 3, but sported a 4+ invulnerable save, so another buff was having a nearby farseer give them a reroll on their save making for an resilient unit with loads of wounds that could not be tied down by a blob and would kill units by the weight of attacks.

All this changed when the new codex arrived :(  The maximum size of the beastpack was changed to 12 models, although you can now freely pick any of the available models to make up the unit.  The Baron who gave the unit so many nice rules also disappeared from the codex.


Can we rebuild the Beaststar

Although we can only have 12 models in a beast pack now, we can have more than 12 wounds by using Clawed Fiends.  Clawed Fiends got a bit better and cheaper in the new codex, being a poor man's Grotesque while not requiring a transport.

Now we could go for 12 Clawed Fiends, but it costs a whopping 360 points, for 36, toughness 5, wounds.  While doable this is a huge unit before you add any characters.  Krymerae are still not bad in the new codex; they went down by 2 points each, while going up to toughness 4 for the cost of their invulnerable save going down to 5+ from 4+.  By adding in some Krymerae we can have the best of both worlds, majority toughness 5 while also have the first shots go against the Krymerae's invulnerable save.

My starter for 10 Beaststar is:
1 Beastmaster
5 Krymerae
6 Clawed Fiends
totalling 240 points, 24 wounds (majority toughness 5) and a total of 2 Str 3, 15 Str 4 & 36 Str 5 attacks on the charge.  However please note this unit is all about the charge as the Clawed Fiends have Rage.  The unit would drop to 1 Str 3, 10 Str 4 & 24 Str 5 attacks if they are charged or it is the 2nd round of a combat.

Why the beastmaster rather than a 6th Krymerae ?  It's not really for the leadership 8, its really that the three options for a decent character to join the unit is toughness 4 (see below), so having one Beastmaster keeps the majority toughness at 5 after the character joins.  Another option would be to add a 7th Clawed Fiend instead of the Beastmaster pushing the unit up to 260 points.


Leadership 8 is Not Enough

As a unit get large in size, and more importantly points value your whole game will depend on whether than unit performs well or not.  It also means it could be game over if a unit fails a critical leadership test.  For the beaststar I propose leadership 8 is not really enough.  In most games an opponent will see it as a threat and it is not that tough so it will be easy to force a morale test (4 casualties required).  In this case you can't have a nearly 1 in 3 chance that the rest of the unit will run off the board.  Leadership 9 is a minimum requirement, leadership 10 is better while being fearless is ideal.  So bare this in mind when choosing which character should be used to supplement the Beaststar.


How do Star's fail ?

When looking at what character we might want to add to the Beaststar, we have to ask what does the Beaststar really need, and what will prevent it doing well in a game.

1) As mentioned above morale is fickle thing, and you can't have so many points invested in a unit which has anything but a very small chance of running off the table due to a morale check, being fearless would be preferable.

2) Being bogged down - some armies can have fearless cheap large units which will tie up the beaststar all game, large guard blobs with 4+ inv save come to mind, or really any large unit which has had invisibility cast on it.  Alternatively they may be too tough for the beaststar to deal with, eg. thunderwolf cav.  In this case the Beaststar needs a way to get out of these bad match-ups and on to better targets.  Previously the Beaststar used the Baron who had Hit and Run, so another character with Hit and Run would be useful.  Its possible to play the Beaststar without Hit and Run, but you have to be careful not to be tied down by a bad match-up.

3) Unlike other deathstars the Beaststar is not that tough (it has lots of wounds, 24, but has very poor armour saves) so anything that can improve it's resilience would be a great help

4) The beaststar can't deal with heavy rear armour or walkers (non-walker vehicles with poor rear armour will be ripped apart by the beaststar), so anything that can help with Walkers or units with high rear armour would be nice



The Contenders

Up first we have the Eldar Autarch.  Stock he gives the Beaststar leadership 10, and helps with reserve rolls.

First upgrade you must give him is something to increase his speed.  Unlike some deathstars such as Necron Wraiths with Characters the Beaststar can not afford to be slowed down by a character with the basic 6" move.  The beaststar (and more importantly the rest of the Dark Eldar army) does not have the resilience to play the waiting game, it must rip the strategic heart of the enemy in the first 3 turns, and can not afford to play the attrition game.  Options for speed are Swooping Hawk wings, a Jetbike or a Warp Jump Generator.  I would advise against the Warp Jump generator because the Autarch would not be able to flicker jump in the Beastpack, and even if he could the unit couldn't.  Swooping Hawk Wings gives him great speed being able to move 18" in the movement phase, great for springing from the back to near the front of the unit in preparation for a charge.  However the Jetbike gives the Autarch toughness 4, the option for a very ling move of 48" if he leaves the beastpack, plus relentless allowing him to fire a heavy weapon on the move (eg. a repear missile launcher).  Ultimately it's down to your personal preference, but I would advise the Jetbike.

The Autarch can also choose more wargear to help the beastpack.  He can have a Banshee mask, meaning the unit charged can not fire overwatch at the beastpack, allowing them to easily charge units they may have worried about, eg. units with lots of shots and/or flamers, D-scythe armed wraithguard or large blobs come to mind.  The Autarch can also include include some anti tank weapons in either a fusion gun or a reaper missile launcher.  The Autarch can include some extra combat punch to unit, taking advantage of his high Weapon skill, Initiative and Attacks.  If on a bike a lance is nice, but even a basic power weapon would help against marines with their 3+ save.

Finally if you want to go the extra mile the Autarch can take the relic than makes him fearless.  However please note that with the cost of a Jetbike or Wings, a ranged weapon, a lance or a relic weapon and the cost of the Autarch can get quite costly, moving the cost of the Autarch and the Beastpack quite expensive.

When it gets to that level of points you have to ask yourself would two slightly smaller beastpacks be better than one with a Character, but that's a question for all 3 contenders.

Next up we have the Eldar Farseer.  This time we have only one option to improve his speed which is to put him on a jetbike.  Rather than some combat punch and a bit of shooting, the Farseer adds loads of support to the unit through his psychic powers.  From the basic rerolls to hit powers the Farseer can really up the surviveability of unit through castings of invisibility or the power to reroll saves which is great on the invulnerable saves of the Krymerae.

The Farseer is also good at supporting the rest of your army with his psychic powers.  Another good use of the Farseer psychic powers is using spells such as Psychic Shriek to deal with opposing units the beastpack might find differcult to kill (the beastpack will struggle against units with good and/or rerollable saves).


The Baron Rebron

The best thing about the old Baron Sathonyx was that he was cheap, and had Hit & Run, meaning it was hard to pin the beastpack down, and the distance they could travel between the end of the opponent's combat phase to the end of their next charge was phenomenal and easy to catch an opponent off guard.  The average distance was 29.5" (3D6" Hit & Run, 12" Move, 2D6 Charge).

So what character can give us Hit & Run ?  It's Baharroth "The Cry of the Wind" the Swooping Hawk Phoenix Lord.  He comes in at a very reasonable 65 points over the cost of the old Baron.  Although he doesn't have the Stealth of the Baron, he does bring toughness 4, a 2+ armour save, Eternal Warrior, a faster 18" move, and even Haywire grenades.  Baharroth also Fearless, meaning once the Beaststar can stand a round of combat without getting too depleted they can Hit & Run away (provided they don't roll a 6) and charge something else.

As I have a converted Baron model (there never was an official model) I plan to add the Autarch Swooping Wings to him, however so far my search of ebay and my usual bitz sites have turned up a blank.  I'm going to keep watching and I'm sure I'll come up with a pair of wings soon.  Below's a picture of my Baron after assembly (I suddenly realised I don't have any pictures of him painted):

Overall the three character options all add something nice to the beastpack, with each giving different benefits.  Being Eldar characters they all require a troops choice to make an Allied Detachment to keep the army bound, buts that's not hard with cheap and effective Eldar Jetbikes.  You can either go with the 3 unupgraded jetbike to do the 5th edition come from reserve to do a last turn objective hop, or for 16 points more than a dual splinter cannon venom you can upgrade the 12 poison shots to 12 str 6 shots.

This is still theory hammer at the moment, but as soon as I find some Autarch wings I'm going to slap them on my Baron, paint them up and give the new Beaststar a whirl.  They aren't as good as most tournament deathstar, eq. Necron Lychstar with associated characters or Thunderstar with friends but they can dish out the pain to most units in this shooting centric 7th edition, and plays well with the glass cannon approach of Dark Eldar.  Lastly as most people have not played against Clawed Fiends I don't some people may underestimate how hard the unit will hit.

So here's my revised Beaststar, ready for playtesting:

Phoenix Lord Baharroth "The Cry of the Wind"
5 Krymerae
7 Clawed Fiends

430 points for a fast but fragile-ish (unit that puts out on the charge 42 Str 5 attacks, 20 str 4 attacks & 5 Str4 power weapon attacks.  I think the rest of the army would need to put a bit more than usual focus on low ap weapons and anti tank to face walkers, Imperial Knights, Wraithknights, Stormsurges etc., but nearly everything else can taken care of by the Beaststar or avoided while the Beaststar takes apart the rest of the enemy army.

Do you think this unit could work ?  Is it viable in a casual or competitive setting ? What do you see as its biggest weaknesses ?  I'd love to hear your thoughts on the unit.

Rathstar

Beasts & Bodyguards Part Four - What I think of Lhamaeans [Dark Eldar]

Interesting for the fourth part in this series we touch on one of the most used in a lot if competitive lists  out of the model being reviewed.  The reason being that she is the cheapest HQ model available to the Dark Eldar, however I believe she deserves a further look.


So Why Do People Take Her

[a familiar start to competitive Dark Eldar lists]

To put it bluntly none of our character HQs are that great, they are fine for friendly games and semi-competitive tournaments, but if you are trying to squeeze every last drop out of a Dark Eldar list in order to compete with the top lists (eg. Eldar, Necrons & Space Marines) then you'd rather have a 10 points HQ (that also gives access to another Venom) and spend the saved points on other units.

An alternative view I have to point out, is that if you are going for a competitive dark eldar list is to leave out combat entirely (or maybe have one counter assault) to concentrate on shooting is a common held view, and not one that I'm going to argue against too strongly.  However if you like a bit of combat in your list, lets take a look at the Lhamaean.


A Closer Look

A Lhamaean costs the same as a Wych and is basically a Kabalite Warrior with better leadership (ld9) and the splinter rifle exchanged for a sword and a splinter pistol (and this is how I converted mine rather than usual mulitples of the, although excellent, finecast model).  However it's the sword (or Shaimeshi blade) that is the real game changer. The Shaimeshi blade is a Poisoned (2+) weapon that causes Instant Death on a 6 to wound roll.  Although the opponent will still get their armour save the 2+ poison will ensure that a fair number of wounds are caused, and the occasional Instant Death wound that could get through will scare Monstrous Creatures (I've killed both a Wraithlord and a Wraithknight, under the last Eldar codex, with that).

The Lhamaean is obviously very fragile, like most Dark Eldar units, with only T3, a 5+ armour save, and later in the game Feel No Pain from the Power from Pain table, so the damage output has to be good to make up for that, so lets take a look.  Can the Lhamaean take on the giants already reviewed and the go-to assault unit; the Grotesque:

[ON = Outnumbered, +1S = The +1 Str Combat Drug result]
Warp Beast = Krymerae, the old school in me slipped out :)

The above table looks at the damage done on the charge against marines (MEQ) and Imperial Guardsmen (GEQ), and compares the ratio between the points killed and the points cost of the unit doing it.

Now an obvious caveat.  This analysis should not be taken in a vaccum, to decide whether you use a unit you also need to consider:

• It's speed; both will it strike first in combat and is it fast enough to get to combat
• How tough the unit is, will it die before it gets to combat, how will it deal with return attacks
• Is it reliable at charging, does it ignore the cover penalty distance, does it have fleet
• How brave is it, will it run at the first sign of damage (leadership) and can this be mitigated cheaply
• Are the numbers reliable, they may be averages but how likely is an average result likely, does it rely on a good number of wounds being caused, does it ignore armour saves (reducing unreliability), does it rely on rolling 6s (eg, rending, which can be very unreliable against opponents with good armour saves - I'm looking at you Necron Wraiths !!)

So now gets back to the numbers.  Right of the bat the Grotesque when it's outnumbered will kill 41% of it's cost on the turn it charges, a very good total, and dwarfing the pitful 23% of a wych if it rolls an inconsequential combat drug result.  However look at the Lhamaean, it kills an impressive 58% of it's points cost in marines on the charge.  It may only kill on average 0.4 marines per Lhamaean but because it only cost 10 points this leads to a very good ratio percentage.

Maybe it's just because the Lhamaean is cheap, but comparing against the Warp beast & Wych with a +1 Str combat drug the Lhamaean still comes up on top.  Looking against GEQ and the Lhamaean and Warp Beast are clear winners.


Can we take this further ?

Although the Lhamaean wins on pure damage dealt it is still very fragile compared to the big hitters of the Grotesque, Sslyth and Clawed Fiend, however lets join two units that cover each other weaknesses.  The Court can be made up of Lhamaeans and Sslyths.  Between them they will have majority toughness 5, the Lhamaeans give the unit good leadership 9 (so they don't require a character to babysit them), and they use up 2 slots in a transport (same as a Grotesque), plus between them they have the same number of wounds as Grotesques and Clawed Fiends.  Overall a nice combined package.  And for those numerically minded, here's there combined stats:

The combined stats are comparable to Grotesques on the charge, has the same majority toughness, most of the wounds start with Feel No Pain, and the rest gain it by mid game.  Advantages compared to Grotesques include better leadership and no need for a babysitter, fleet to make charges more reliable, some shooting to give them some flexibility, and lastly opponents have rarely seen a Court of the Archon with more than a single Lhamaean or a few Medusae, let alone played against one.  Don't underestimate how an opponent's unfamiliarity with a unit can mess with their target priority, force them into making hard decisions and they are more likely to make mistakes.


So for me, we have a...

My top pick for a combat unit is a Court made up of Lhamaeans and Sslyths, however all of the units in the stats table above (apart from Wyches) are good, and all have niches where they are the best unit for the job at hand.  Therefore rather than having multiple Courts I have a unit of each; Grotesques, Krymerae & Clawed Fiends.

Were you expecting this conclusion ?  Have you used Lhamaeans, how did you find them ?  Has this series been useful so far ?

Rathstar


Next up I'll be discussing adding a touch of light.

Beasts & Bodyguards Part Three - What I think of Sslyth [Dark Eldar]

The Sslyth has to be the 2nd least seen Dark Eldar model (only beaten by the Ur-Ghul), ask any non Dark Eldar player (and even some Dark Eldar players) what they thought of the Sslyth (let alone the Ur-Ghul) and a significant proportion wouldn't even know it was a Dark Eldar model.

Sometimes this is one of the great advantages of playing a less popular army.  As well as being told the stats and abilities of a unit sometimes it can take playing against it once or twice to know exactly how good and threatening it is.  When a Dark Eldar army has a few units an opponent has never played against before it can lead to them underestimating and/or overestimating certain units leading to mistakes.

However lets gets back to why Sslyths are seen so little.  First they are part of the Court of the Archon, which in the previous codex was a very poor unit to have, mainly because you were forced to have one of each of the four members of the Court.  With the current codex you can now mix and match how you want, from having a single Lharmaean to cheaply fill up an HQ slot, to 5 Medusa in a Venom to deepstrike and flame something out of existance, or even a 12 Sslyth bomb, and any combination in between.

So now that the Court has models, this is another reason Sslyths aren't seen often.  The model is a one pose expensive finecast model like all of the other Court Members:

no-one wants a unit where all the models are in the same pose, so again like the Clawed Fiends I recommend using a conversions.  Although you could convert the official Sslyth model:

I just didn't like the lizard head, and then I came accross these stunning sonversions by Eye of Terror:

Here's a link to his blog post showing of his entire Court of the Archon with many more pictures of the Court members he has converted, included links to his work in progress blog posts.  I advise anyone to stay and browse the rest of his blog it's a true inspiration.

Although the actual Sslyth model is no bigger than the Lharmaean model, even though it is on a bigger base:

I think Eye of Terror's conversion captures the feel of the Sslyth much better, so I shamelessly stole the idea myself for my own Sslyths, however there are other ways to convert up your own Sslyths, and once your model has the right weapons you can't go to far wrong, and it can be loads of fun converting up your own model.


But are they any good ?

Is it worth going to all the trouble of converting the official model to have different poses or converting your own Sslyths ?

Lets start with cost, at 12.5pts per wound they are the marginally more expensive per wound compared to Grotesques and Clawed Fiends (and are only 5 pts cheaper than the 3 wound Clawed Fiend), so what do we get for that.

For starters they are not bulky (surprising for a 2 wound, toughness 5 model) so you can fit more in a transport.  You can only fit 4 Grotesques in a raider if you want to include a independent character to offset their awful leadership, where as you could fit 9 Sslyths in a raider.

Next the Sslyths have a gun each, and not just any gun, but one that fires 3 poison shots each with 18" range.  Compared to Grotesques and Clawed Fiends they have the best armour, if only a 5+, and come stock with Feel No Pain, making each of their Toughness 5 wounds the hardest to get rid (outside of pain engines).

To compliment their 3 shots each on the way into combat they have 5 attacks str5 each on the charge.  That's only 1 less a Clawed Fiend as they don't have rage, and while the same as Grotesques it not's poison and they can't get extra attacks if they are outnumbered (like the Groesques from Ramage).

Overall they are not quite as good as Grotesques in combat, and are marginally worse than Clawed Fiends on the charge, however they are the toughest to get a wound from.

When it comes to the baby sitting duties, all three Dark Eldar monsters need a baby sitter because they have very poor leadership.  In this regards the Sslyth comes out on top.  While a Grotesque need an expensive independent character, the Sslyths can take a cheap Lharmaean as an addition member for the Court and use her very good leadership 9, even better than the beastmaster's leadership 8.  Also while the beastmaster adds little to the combat power of the Clawed Fiends the Lharmaean isn't bad for her points (but more on that in another article).


My Experiences

I have been using a unit of 5 Sslyths accompanied by 4 Lharmaeans.  This unit costs 165 pts, and I also use a unit of 4 Grotesques accompanied by an Archon with no upgrades at all.

I find that because the Grotesques have a character (even one with no upgrades) and it's almost as if their reputation precedes them, opponents always go for the Grotesque raider first.  This has normally meant that my Court normally makes combat before my Grotesques

The shooting option of the Sslyths have also been very useful to have, eg. in one game both my Grotesques and Sslyth;s raiders were shot down turn 1, and had to slog it accross the board with 2 wraithlords being the closest models, while the Grots had to run blindly towards the enemy the Sslyth were able to shoot once they got close (at the expense of running), but a volley of 19 shots from the Court took town a wraithlord (average wounds for the shot was 2.1, but the wraithlord rolled a bit bad on saves).

The fleet on the Court also makes them more reliable on the run and charge, making them marginally faster than Grotesques, and I'm be more ready to attempt a longer charge with Sslyth than Grotesques.

The Sslyths are just good as Grotesques at smacking non-walker vehicles, and mine have taken many landspeeders, rhinos, wave serpents in the games so far, and I look forward to them supplimenting my anti tank in future games.  For reference 5 charging Sslyths should do an average of 5.5 hull points to rear armour 10 non walker vehicles, so they have to roll very badly not to do at least 3 hull points.


In Summary...

Sslyths have many similarities with Grotesques and Clawed Fiends, they all hit hard with str5 attacks, and for the points are the toughest Dark Eldar wounds available.

Sslyths have the toughest wounds, and have decent short range shooting, although the shooting is not what you would only take the units for (for pure anti infantry firepower see venoms) it adds flexibility to the unit that Grotesques and Clawed Fiends don't have.

Outside of a raider the Clawed Fiends are the fastest, but with the raider the Sslyths (with their Fleet piping the Grotesques) can cover the most ground for a turn 2 charge when you include a 1st turn 30" move with the raider.

So far in my games the Court (mine made up of Lharmaeans and Sslyths) is becomeing my favourite of my 4 assault units, although my beastpacks are a close second, apart from when all my raiders a blown up 1st turn, and then I love my beastpacks.


What's your experiences so with or against the Sslyths ?  How do you think they measure against Grotesques and the Dark Eldar other close combat units ?  Are you considering making your own, and which models/bits will you use ?

Rathstar

PS.  Below's a pic of the painting I did for a recent tournament.  The back three rows of Scourges, Sslyths and Clawed Fiends still need highlighting, but it was nice to get them up to this level.  Better pictures will follow shortly.

Beasts & Bodyguards Part Two - What I think of Clawed Fiends [Dark Eldar]

For my second article in this series we look at the big monster from the beastpack; the Clawed Fiend.  Compared to the Dark Eldar's other Toughness 5 monsters (the other two being Sslyths and Grotesques) the Clawed Fiends are the fastest, strike earliest (higher initiative), and hit with more attacks on the charge (unless the Grotesques are outnumbered), and they do this at the lowest cost per wound.  So why aren't these models seen more often, and what do I think of them ?

There are a number of reasons why this model is rarely seem on the gaming table.  The first is that the model is finecast and therefore expensive, next the model comes in only one pose, putting off modelers who don't like identical models in a group and don't want to convert finecast.

However a quick google picture search will show lots of examples of much cheaper alternatives.  This goes for all the beastpack models as this comparison shows:

A good example of an alternative conversion is the pic below from Dave Taylor Miniature's blog:

based on Undead Vargheists, but a google search will bring up loads of other examples from conversions based on Warhammer Ogres to Privateer Press and other manufacturer models.  Dark Eldar is great for conversions so let your imagination go wild.

So now we have got the cost and modelling issues out of the way, how good are Clawed Fiends on the battlefield.  The obvious comparison is against Grotesques & Sslyth, and the comparison starts off well with Clawed Fiends being the cheapest per wound, and being Beasts they are fast across the battlefield, are not slowed by terrain meaning they don't need (even if they could take one) a transport, and more importantly aren't slowed to infantry speed if they lose a paper thin transport.

The pluses keep coming:  Clawed Fiends have a high enough initiative that they strike before Marines (unlike both Grotesques & Sslyths).

So with these significant strengths what are their weaknesses:

The first is that they are only WS3 not 4 like the rest of the Dark Eldar army.  This means that they will get hit easier by WS4 opponents.  However it does not affect what they hit on against WS4, 5 or 6.  If you pick the right target and strike first doing enough damage that there aren't too many attacks coming back you can mitigate this issue.

.

The big weakness against their main competitors, is that the Clawed Fiends are fragile.  Grotesques get a 6+ armour save and Feel No Pain, Sslyths get a 5+ armour save and Feel No Pain.  Clawed Fiends get a 6+ armour save and that's it, and they don't have Power from Pain to get any bonus like the Grotesques later in the game.

Lastly Clawed Fiends have horrible leadership, and that it the same for their rivals (Grotesques and Sslyths), however rather than having to include a expensive independent character like Grotesques, they can include a 10 point beastmaster upping the unit's leadership to 8.  The beastmaster should be placed at the back of the unit, and if you have two beastmasters they shouldn't be placed close to each other to avoid them both being taken out with one enemy volley.

Overall the Clawed Fiend epitimises the Dark Eldar way of war.  They hit fast and hard but are very fragile.  To get the best out of them advance through cover to get a cover save (it doesn't slow you down after all), and hit targets that are not going to swing back with a decent number of attacks and definitely not high strength attacks (as having a high toughness is their only protection).

Even if they distract the opponent firepower, even the fragile Clawed Fiends should tie up a decent about of the enemy's firepower that would otherwise kill serious chunks of the rest of the Dark Eldar force.  Meltaguns and Lascannons will only knock off one wound, and they may even by saved by a cover save.

If you have a few aggressive elements of your army, Clawed Fiends can help give you the critical mass so that some of those elements get through.  In some games my Clawed Fiends have been seen as a huge threat and were taken out in two turns, but that allowed my Krymerae to get to assault the enemy, sometime it's the other way round.  Other times they are ignored in favour of the usual units people expect to see in a Dark Eldar army and know are good, Ravagers, Venoms, Grotesques.

Preferred targets for the Clawed Fiends are S3 T3 models (because they'll find it hard to wound the Fiends while being wounded easily by them), units with not too many attacks, particularly if they are Init4 or lower and will strike after the Fiends. Non-Walker vehicles with rear armour 10 or 11 are also good targets (5 charging fiends average 3.4 hull points against rear armour 11 and twice as much against rear armour 10).

Watch out for str10 weapons, unfortunately on the increase with the new Eldar.  However pick your targets well and plan your approach and Clawed Fiends can do well.

Now what if we combine Krymerae from my last article with Clawed Fiends to try and get the best of both worlds.  The Clawed Fiends can bring the majority toughness 5, while the Krymerae can bring the 5++ inv save.

Say 1 Beastmaster, 4 Krymerae & 4 Clawed Fiends for a nice 170 pts.  It's a nice unit with majority toughness 5, lots of attacks on the charge (16 str 4, and 24 str 5) on a very fast platform.

The limiting factor is the leadership 8.  You shouldn't put to many points into a unit that is only leadership 8, so this is about as large as I'd go. Adding another Krymerae and Clawed Fiends puts the unit cost past 200, which is a large amount for such a fragile unit.

The beaststar is dead...long live the beaststar !!!

So after saying that the beastpack is too fragile and has poor leadership to have a big unit, if you did want to go this way this is what I would do:

Have 6 Krymerar and 6 Clawed Fiends - you want as much hitting power from the max 12 models you can take while maintaining majority toughness 5.

Then add an allied Eldar Autarch with Swooping Hawk wings and a banshee mask (remember eldar charaters on jetbikes no longer have fleet with the new codex).  Finally give the Autarch the Shard of Anaris to make him fearless.

The beastpack costs 240 pts, with Autarch pushing the total past 350 pts.  But you have a fast unit that starts of with 27 majority T5 wounds that have Krymerae at the front with their 5++ inv save, and best yet no one can overwatch them when they charge.  The beastpack alone puts out 24 Str 4 and 36 Str 5 attacks on the charge :)  Still has some big weaknesses, like a wraithknight would laugh at their attacks and them stomp them into next week, but against most units it will just roll over them.

Well that's it for Clawed Fiends, probably the least used out of the Dark Eldar assault units, however it's a unit that has a nice niche, and I think should be considered.

What's your thoughts and experiences with the Clawed Fiends ?  Do you run them alone or in a mixed beastpack ? Written them off as not worth it - let me know your thoughts.

Rathstar

Up next Sslyths !!

Beasts & Bodyguards Part One - What I think of Krymerae [Dark Eldar]

Hi,

Welcome to the first of a 4 part series exploring the monsters of the Dark Eldar, and what I think of them.  A warning I won't be going to into the specific rules of units, but more about how I use them and what I like or dislike about them.

When I was about to start this series I came across a question on facebook: "Anyone use Khymerae? I'm thinking of trying them again".

Now to give some context Dark Eldar beastpacks were a lynchpin of a top Eldar/Dark Eldar army build in the previous codex.  In that codex you could take 1-5 beastmasters and each beastmaster could take either 1 Clawed Fiend, 1-2 Razorwing Flocks or 1-5 Krymerae.  A common build was to build a resilient and large beaststar made up of 5 Beastmasters and 25 Krymerae (who back then had a 4+ inv save), add to that a Farseer that would give the beastpack fortune and/or invisibility.  The Farseer could keep up with the beastpack with a jetbike and he could make them fearless with a relic if he joined them.  To top it off an old Special Character, the Baron, could join the unit giving them Stealth and Hit&Run.

In the new codex this all changed.  The Baron was gone, and the max size of the beastpack was reduced to 12, although you were free to pick any combination of models (up to 12 in total).  The Krymera's invulnerable save was also reduced from 4++ to just having the daemon rule, so having a 5++.  The beaststar was dead !

However Krymerae did go down from 12 to 10 pts and increased from T3 to T4, and you could take less beastmaster tax, as you only need to take one to get Ld8, so in my eyes if you didn't use the beaststar before they were just as good as before.

Here's my response to the Facebook post:

"1 or 2 beastmasters and 10-11 krymerae is a great unit for 120 pts. They are lightning fast (speed and initiative) and throw out a bucket of str4 attacks. They are fragile and only ld8 (from the beastmasters), but the damage output for the cost is great.

Compare them to 3 Grotesques (105pts) against 1 beastmaster and 10 krymerae (110 pts). If outnumbered (to get Ramage) the Grots will kill on average 3.1 marines vs 3.3 marines for the krymerae, against weaker opponents the krymerae will do better than the Grots due to the Grots already wounding marines 8 out of every 9 hits, so can't get much better. Lastly the Grots need a transport and a independent character to give them Ld above 4.

A great example of the pros and cons of Krymerae and the beastpack in general is my game against Eldar last night. For assault I had a Court of the Archon (Lharmaens & Sslyths) in a raider, Archon with 4 Grots in a Raider, a Beastpack (Beastmaster & 10 Krymerae) and a 2nd Beastpack (Beastmaster with 4 Clawed Fiends).

Both raiders, along with 2 Venoms were popped turn 1 before I got to move. Turn 2 my Eldar opponent saw the Clawed Fiends and Grots as issues, and wiped out the Clawed Fiends, and did a few wounds to the Grots. My turn 2 the Krymerae multi assaulted 3 ScatBikes and 4 Dark Reapers, making the Bikes flee, and killing the remaining Dark Reapers in the Eldar turn, Turn 3 they killed a Hornet, and got shot at by a Wave Serpent and lost 3 models (just 4 shots) but then killed another Hornet turn 4. The Court killed a wraithlord from shooting and assaulted and killed 5 Fire Dragons turn 4. The Grots and Archon (no Shadow Field) absorbed loads of Firepower and eventually charged a killed a 2nd wraithlord.

The beastpacks showed how fragile they are (Clawed Fiends dying easily, and the Krymerae losing models from few shots), but also their speed and their hitting power. If the Krymerar don't stand out as the immediate threat they can do wonders if the opponents leaves them alone for a turn to allow them a turn 2 charge. My opponent had played my army before and that time the Krymerae had charged and killed a wave serpent turn 2, but with venoms, ravagers, 3 toughness 5 assault units (Clawed Fiends, Grots & Sslyths) he left the Krymerae alone.

Make no mistake if any opponent decided to give the Krymerae attention they will die easily and do nothing, but in my game it would have meant leaving something out of the raiders with assault troops, venoms, ravagers or clawed fiends untouched. Force your opponent to make hard decisions and they are more likely to get it wrong.

If you couldn't guess I'm a big fan of Krymerae, and never write a list without them :)"

What's you experiences of Krymerae ?  Agree or disagree with my opinion, either way let me know your view.

Which monster will be up next ?

Rathstar